Friday, June 2, 2017

Backchannel

A report from the Innuendo Front.

A panel segment on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday morning was discussing reports that White House advisor Jared Kushner may have suggested establishing a communication back channel with Russian officials. Kimberly Strassel of The Wall Street Journal interjected this information to place the dreaded "back channel" in some perspective:

"Let me set the scene for you: It’s 2008, we are having an election and candidate Obama, he’s not even president elect, sends William Miller over to Iran to establish a backchannel, and let the Iranians know should he win the election they will have friendlier terms. Okay? So this is a private citizen going to foreign soil, obviously in order to evade U.S. intelligence monitoring and establishing a backchannel with a sworn enemy of the United States who was actively disrupting our efforts in the military in the Middle East."

Not to say this is ok, just that it is common--our esteemed leaders see themselves well beyond our mundane restraints-- and criticism of our esteemed leaders is quite selective.